Twenty Six Cents and Paper Shoes
by loveless-tonight
Summary: She was reminded of exactly who she is every night. He made sure that she couldn't escape her reality. She never had much time to think about it because her uncle was giving her a fix and kicking her out of the house to see her next client. She walked into the car and he rubbed her leg, reaching to high up on her skirt, brushing her panties. She didn't do anything, a job was a job


She begged not to be sent away. Did she do something wrong? No, it was her drunk of a mother who was too busy trying to find her next fix opposed to raising her only daughter. It was her good for nothing father who got off on the fact that his daughter looked like his wife who could be gone for days at a time. It was her brother who didn't fight more for a family.

The plane flew her and her brother to England; nothing (not even the roasted and salted peanuts the stewardess offered her) could make the eleven year old stop crying. Her Uncle would be taking care of them and she couldn't be more unready.

School started up a month after the siblings arrived in England and she hated it. She had to start middle school in a new country and with no friends. Her uncle said she could never leave the house until she started working.

She saw him on the first day. Her hand started to twitch as she earned to draw him, but her uncle had taken away her pencils. He said she had better things to do rather than wasting herself in front of a pad of paper.

His hair fell just the right way and his skin was as golden as his eyes. Even from being on campus for fifteen minutes she had heard whispers of the boy and how he looked good for being abused for five years.

She was as in love as the sixth grader could be. She loved the way he sauntered down the halls. The way he was so oblivious to all the girls' stares. The way he would smile at something silly when he thought no one was looking. The way that he never did anything to be cruel to her, like the other kids.

With her bright red hair, people made fun of her a lot. He never stood up for her, but he would shoot the kids un-amused glances, and that sometimes made them stop.

She was in love with the way he could make butterflies fly around in her stomach. She loved the way that with one look from him her day could be made. She loved him.

They only spoke on one occasion. He remembered every second she was standing in his presence though.

_She walked up to her brother, who happened to be talking with him. They had never spoken before, but he heard whispers of the way she would stare at him when his back was turned._

"_Uncle wants me home right after school." She said flatly._

_Her brother scowled. "Walk home yourself. You're a big girl."_

_He watched as she held back something, like annoyance but with a tint of fear. "You know he won't like it if you leave me alone."_

_Her voice seemed to be hinting at something, but at 12, he couldn't put it together. Her brother who was 13 seemed to get the point, and although he cared less that their uncle would be mad at her, he didn't want to get punished._

"_I can walk her home." He spoke up, something showing in his eyes._

_She shook her head fast not wanting to get him in trouble. "Uncle wants my brother to." She said before turning on her heel._

In art class that year, she had spent months working on a piece of work. It took her longer than the other kids to finish her school projects because her uncle had her doing other things and she didn't have time for homework.

She was proud of this art piece though. She drew him in all his damaged glory. His dead eyes shone through even though he wore a smile. Blushing, she dropped it on his desk as she went to the front of the room.

When she turned back, she saw a small twinkle in his eyes, similar to the one when they spoke for the first time, but it quickly faded.

A boy who sat with the golden boy grabbed the picture out of his hands and crinkled it up and threw it away.

"_He don't need no drawing from a filthy whore like you." He spat at her, making her eyes swell up with tears._

_She had no idea what he was talking about, because she hadn't ever made anything public. The business going down with her uncle was normal she thought. All kids have to do something to help out with the income, right?_

"_What can this get me? Judging by your looks it should get me a laid." He held out a quarter, with an evil smile on his face. The class erupted into laughter._

_She started to leave, tears falling down her cheeks. _

"_Oops." The bully said. "I offended it, how about this?" _

_She looked over her shoulder, not paying attention to the boy who added a penny to her worth, but the boy with the golden eyes. He leaned down into the trashcan and pulled out her drawing. He folded it up and put it in his pocket._

_Without another thought, she left the class laughing about the twenty six cents._

That was the last time she saw him. Her uncle had better things for her to do all day, and didn't need eight hours of school getting in the way.

He started shooting her up, giving her the same stuff her mother had fallen into, though she didn't know it.

Halfway through the year she tried to get to school. She missed seeing all the kids and the boy with the gold eyes. She couldn't remember much about him; because everything focused around the job her uncle had given to her.

After turning twelve just a few weeks ago, her uncle told her what he had been giving her. She told she didn't want to take the heroine anymore.

"_You're sick to make me do this. I just want to o to school with my brother." She said, tears threatening to fall over._

_The slap that he gave her was quick and she didn't have much time to react. The tears disappeared after this and she apologized._

_He was her master. _

_He owned her._

_She wasn't allowed to talk to him like that._

"_Go make us some money for groceries." He said, slapping her rear end and shoved her out the door._

_She fell into the arms of a man that reeked of alcohol. She looked over eighteen with her makeup and the heroine pumping though her blood. Her skirt was too short and her shirt too tight, and she knew that she would be removing them soon enough._

She tried to leave with the memory scaring her. She didn't even stay out of the house for two days before she came back crying and shaking, begging for him to fix it.

The drug pumped in her blood and she drifted into happiness.

It was a fake, artificial happiness which was nothing like she used to experience.

She used to play in the snow, small white flakes, much like her drug, falling into her hair and eye lashes. Her mom with identical red hair would rap her up to keep her warm. Her brother would tackle the two into a nearby snow bank, making them all laugh. Even her father would come and join in on the fun, helping his two kids build a snowman.

Her uncle kicked her hard and swift in the ribs for leaving and losing him money. She apologized, whimpering on the floor like a dog. She didn't know that she could depend on something she hated so much.

On her fourteenth birthday, her uncle let her go back to school after over two years.

She didn't want to go back. People stared at her and her brother didn't help. She heard people laughing and pointing at the clothes that were either too baggy or too revealing.

People saw that she was nothing more than skin and bones. She looked for the boy who was now a distant memory, who offered to walk her home. The boy she spent over four months drawing.

The boy she was still distantly and sickly in love with.

He wasn't there He had transferred to a new school on the other side of town.

The police showed up to house on a late winter night, and arrested his father.

The doctors took him in for a while, healing the broken bones which never set back right, and tended to the cuts and bruises that covered the majority of his body.

He had been taken into a nice family. There was a boy his age and a girl a year younger. The siblings also had another younger brother, who had a certain innocence to him.

After being transferred to a new school, he got a second chance. The only people that knew him were his new family and they kept his secret. They told everyone that he was a family friend tat moved in with them.

He had a new life, quickly forgetting about the redhead that drew him the picture he carried in his pocket.

She was getting picked on by the other girl, and her brother walked by, making eye contact.

She wanted him to yell at the girls, and tell her that he would always protect her. She wouldn't have to go and be with the disgusting men after her sixth block class and that they would get away from their uncle.

He smirked at her and continued walking away, letting the girl verbally harass her.

She showed up to school with a deep purple bruise on her face one day with she was sixteen.

By that time she needed the fixes more and more often. She would normally go home to her uncle and get a shot of heroine so that she could make it through the rest of the day with her sanity.

She was sitting in the nurses office, getting question who hit her.

She tried and play it off coolly, trying and appear as if she could go more that six hours without a drug which would be the death of her if her uncle didn't get to her first.

The nurse asked if she needed to call the police, and she said no quickly.

One of the rules her uncle had given her at a young age was to never get the police involved. The police meant that she would die.

She told the woman that was staring at her with sympathetic eyes that her brother and she had gotten in a fight and he threw something at her.

The only reason her story was believed was the fact that makeup covered the outsides of the nasty wound.

She asked to leave, and that was the last day she went to school.

On the rare occasions her and her brother were in the room together, she learned that people often asked what happened to the 'scrawny, anorexic, ugly redhead.'

She took the insults freely, having had heard much worse when she was doing her job.

Some days she wondered if her brother knew about the business that her uncle had her involved in. The day that his older friend showed up as her client, she knew that he had to.

They went through with the contract in the back of his car. It was a new Mercedes, and that's when she found out exactly how much her uncle was making in this business he created.

That night after waking up in an ally, her underwear nowhere to be found, she went home to confront her uncle.

"_How much do they pay?" she asked, getting straight to business._

_He stood up, and stroked a hand down her cheek, feather light. It trailed down to her throat, which he tightened his hold, restricting her from getting air._

"_You are nothing but a whore, you get fucked and then you get left in an ally. You speak only when spoken to."_

She got the drug taken away from her for two days. At the end of her punishment she was withering on the floor, sobbing and apology for being so disrespectful.

She didn't speak again until her nineteenth birthday.

Her uncle had taken advantage of the fact he had a whore under his roof whenever she was out doing his business or getting new clients.

She woke up with a searing pain on the side of her head and in her jaw. She pulled out the mirror she always kept in her handbag for occasions like that. She didn't cry when she saw through the cracked glass the swollen side of her head.

She only cried when she remembered how her uncle had violently raped her several times, and then kicked her and punched her when she didn't like it.

Instead of going to the abortion clinic, like her uncle had told her to that day, she went straight to the hospital.

She felt everyone stare at her as she made her way down the street, her vision blurry from the concussion she must have gotten. Almost halfway there she realized she only had shoe on.

As she pushed through the doors into the big brick building, she came up with a story. She didn't think that the doctor would believe that she ran into the door, and she couldn't play dumb. She may be nineteen, but she looked in her late twenties.

Heroine did take its toll on her growing body.

She got into a room almost immediately, a nurse asking if she had to call the police for her. Shaking her head no, she looked at her bare foot, and speaking for the first time.

"_I don't know where my shoe is." She said, her voice no louder that a whisper._

_Her vocal chords were sore from not being used for three years._

_The nurse stared at her with a sad smile. She went over to the wall on the opposite of the room and dialed a number, and soon a doctor was in with them. _

"_Miss, I need you to tell me how you got your concussion." He said after examining her. "The good news is that the jaw isn't broken, but it was slightly dislocated, which you seeming to have popped back into place."_

_She sat for a moment. "I got into a fight, with a girl. She took my shoe." She lied swiftly, not hinting at anything with her broken voice._

The nurse gave her a paper shoe cover, which the surgeons used to keep blood off their shoes. It at least kept part of her foot warm in the chilly hospital.

Calls were made and she sat on the examination table, soon falling asleep from exhaustion. She woke up only minutes later, shaking with the effects of short term withdrawal.

She tried to hide her desperation for a fix when the cop came in.

It wasn't that hard to make the shaking seem like something else, for she was now on her feet trying to run out of the room. The doctor grabbed her gently and she started screaming.

The nurse started to page for psych, but the police officer motioned for her to stop.

She cried in frustration, because the nurse didn't know what she had done. The nurse didn't know how much worse she made things just by calling the police. She would never know the damage that she had done.

The police put a gentle hand on her back, and promised that he wouldn't let anybody harm her, she didn't have to talk, she just had to listen what he had to say and answer some questions if she could.

"_Please." He said, giving a small smile. "I just want to help you."_

_She stared at him for a long time before she sat down on the table again. The doctor and nurse left, after giving the officer a questioning look._

"_I know you." She said, looking into his eyes. They were an amber color, and his hair was a dark blonde. She couldn't put a finger on it, but she recognized him. She first thought that he was a client, but from his first question realized her wasn't._

"_This must be hard for you, trust me. I know what it's like to have someone hurt you. I also know that you trade sex for money. And judging by the way you can't stop fidgeting you are also on some sort of drug. Is someone forcing you to do this?" he asked, a glint of something in those familiar eyes._

_She shook her head. "I can't tell you. I will be killed if I speak about this to anyone."_

_He touched her leg comfortingly. "I've only ever wanted to help you like you did me." He said. "I promise I won't let anybody hurt you. You just need to tell me who you're working for."_

_She froze, recognizing the once golden eyes and golden hair. She was startled that he said that she had helped him. She also felt hurt that he never once came to see her. She was upset he left the school without as much as a goodbye._

"_I drew you." She said plainly, showing him that she knew who he was. "It was the hardest I had ever worked on anything."_

_He smiled and took a crumpled piece of paper. It had thick creases from being folded and unfolded over and over again._

_On the paper was the boy. Younger, more hauntingly beautiful opposed to the new and put together officer standing in front of her._

"_You may want to help me, but talking to me will get me killed." She whispered, handing the drawing back._

_He sighed and told her that protecting whoever is making her do this is stupid. She cringed, thinking her was going to slap her when he brought his hand up to rake through his hair._

"_This drawing you made gave me the courage to call the cops on my father. He abused me almost every night." He explained. "When you left school after that guy called you a whore, I vowed to help you. I promised I would find a way that you could live happily." He held onto her hand. "I saw you waking down the streets sometimes, getting into people's cars, or going into cheap motels. I wanted to rescue you but didn't know how."_

_She remembered seeing flashes of gold in town sometimes, whether she was in her was home or onto the next client. She wanted to scream at him for not stopping her sooner, instead she stared ahead at the wall behind him._

_He pulled out a card and wrote down his number on the back. "Here's my number. I'm useless if you're going to be stupid."_

_He handed it to her, his finger tips brushing her palm for a second too long. She looked up when he didn't pull away and saw tears in her eyes._

_This was the first time she didn't feel like a dirty whore in a long time._

_She put it in her bag and walked out of the room, not saying anything to the boy that she once loved._

The walk home was hard and cold. She stumbled, wearing only one shoe and a makeshift paper one on her other foot.

It wasn't until she walked up to her next door she realized someone was behind her. A rough hand grabbed her hair and threw her through the door.

"Where've you been, bitch?" her uncle asked.

She didn't speak, knowing that even though she was given permission, the wrong thing would get her killed. Her eyes were brimmed with tears, knowing how upset her mother would be if she saw the scene in front of her. She came to live with her uncle for a new chance at life. Instead she was being pimped by him.

Her brother walked in the room, staring at his uncle with wonder. He didn't know if she was actually about to be killed by his family.

She dropped her bag with fear and shock and her brother stepped between herself and the man who was getting ready to kill her.

Everything fell to the floor, making a big mess. She bent down to start cleaning it, but her uncle kicked her away. He saw the card that she had slipped into the bag after her meeting and cried with outrage.

He shoved her brother to the side. His head smacked against the floor hard, and blood was pooled underneath him. Her uncle sneered at him and held the knife to her throat.

"What did you tell him?" he asked with a deadly serious tone in his voice.

She didn't reply, begging for a release.

She thought about how her mother sent her here for a new chance.

She was sent here to grow up with a good family.

She was manipulated and raped by her uncle.

She had been turned on by her own brother.

She had watched adults pretend she wasn't constantly in danger.

She had been turned into a drug addict at twelve.

She was going to be killed for getting a card on her birthday.

She was waiting patiently for the final blow.

He brought his knife into her chest just as the door was broken down.

"Clary!" the cop yelled, shooting her uncle to the ground.

She smiled, blood on her lips as she fell to her knees, the knife still her chest. She rolled onto her back and a tear fell from her dead green eyes. Her red hair spread out beneath her head, and she had never looked more beautiful.

She died with a name on her lips.

"_Jace"_


End file.
